Asked about the possibility of meeting ousted former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in solitary confinement in a prison in the capital, the Singaporean diplomat did not comment.
She also did not specify who she was going to see, before leaving her hotel under police escort.
The Secretary-General’s special envoy “will address the deteriorating situation and immediate concerns, as well as other priority issues of his mandate,” the UN said on Monday, without further details.
For her first visit to Burma since her appointment in October 2021, Noeleen Heyzer arrived in Naypyidaw on Tuesday afternoon, the day after the new conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi, during her river trial denounced as political by the international community.
The 77-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, already sentenced to eleven years in prison, received an additional six years in prison for corruption.
The United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have each mandated an envoy to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis that has ravaged Burma since the February 1, 2021 coup.
Today, their progress is slim. “I believe that even Superman cannot solve the Burma problem,” whispered ASEAN special envoy Prak Sokohnn in early August.
Noeleen Heyzer succeeded the Swiss Christine Schraner Burgener, who was unable to enter the country after the putsch.
The Burmese army provoked new condemnations from the international community at the end of July, after executing four prisoners sentenced to death, including two figures of the pro-democracy movement.
In its annual report released in early August, the UN Independent Investigative Mechanism for Burma found that there was a growing body of evidence that crimes against humanity were being committed in the country.
Since taking power, the ruling army has carried out a bloody crackdown on its opponents, with more than 2,100 civilians killed and nearly 15,000 arrested, according to a local NGO.
